


A Love Like Ours

by taradiane



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, M/M, Melancholy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 10:10:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4175883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taradiane/pseuds/taradiane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for harrydracompreg fest, June 2015. </p>
<p>(Prompt 35) Just a domestic story that includes a scene with Harry coming home from work and watching Draco play the piano,violin,etc to his baby bump.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Love Like Ours

Harry hated working the night shift. It took him weeks to get his body clock back to normal again on the day shift, and by the time that usually happened, his rotation back onto nights would start all over. The dreaded thirty-days-on-thirty-days-off schedule was par for the course for Level Three Healers-in-Training, and Harry was just counting the weeks until he passed his exams and became a Level Four – nothing but day shifts in Spell Damage.

Dragging tired, weary feet up the final steps to the front door of their home, Harry exhaled with a heavy sigh as he looked at the newly planted flowers in the window boxes. He and Molly had put them in the weekend prior, and in the chill of the early morn, the petals were covered in dew. They were beautiful, full of vibrant colour, but he'd forgotten the anti-frost charm before he'd left for work the night before and wasn't sure if they were going to survive. All that work, wasted.

He could have Apparated directly into their bedroom, but on mornings like these, Harry needed the walk home to help him decompress and shrug off the stressors of his shift. He'd known from the beginning of this latest rotation that working paediatrics would be as equally fulfilling as it was stressful, but tonight he'd lost the young boy who had already been in his care since the third day of his rotation, and after having fallen into a coma four days prior, his little body finally gave up. Having to tell the boy's mother . . .

Harry squeezed his eyes shut, willing the image away as he breathed deeply.

He knew that it was always going to be difficult when a patient under his watch didn't make it, especially a child, but now that Harry was on the precipice of fatherhood himself . . . this particular loss was hitting him especially hard. As much as he wanted to sink into the embrace of his lover – his best friend and partner for the past four years – he didn't want to bring this particular grief home. They had just found out that they were going to be having a boy themselves, were already talking about names, and Harry didn't even want to put the thought of a child losing their life in the other man's mind.

The wards on the front door of their home came down easily, and Harry pocketed his wand as he turned the doorknob. As he crossed the threshold, soft melodic sounds drifted through the front hall from the conservatory where Draco had his Bösendorfer Grand piano. Draco's talent had been one of many surprises in the early days of their friendship, and he still credits the sight of the other man sitting in front of the instrument, while making the most beautiful, melachony sounds with soft fingertips atop ivory keys, as the singular moment he knew he'd fallen in love.

Harry walked down the hall, past the lounge and library, turning the corner and bypassing the kitchen until he stood in front of the tall French doors of the conservatory, a later addition to the Tudor-style home that Draco had insisted upon. It was full of lush greenery and various flora and fauna that Harry had long forgotten the names for, and trellised ivy covering nearly every square inch of the glass walls. In the center of it all was Draco, back straight as he sat on the piano bench with arms outstretched, making a whole other kind of magic with ivory instead of Hawthorn.

The other man hadn't noticed his arrival, and Harry was content to simply watch, music filling the room as deft hands seemed to float above the keys with expert grace. The thin white shirt that the other man was wearing, necessary in the controlled humidity of the room, showed a hint of the strong shoulders that hid beneath the fabric; the toned muscles of his back that Harry had felt flex beneath his fingers as they lay in bed more times than he could count.

He leaned against the doorway, still watching, and Draco closed his eyes as the familiar song neared the end. It was one of his favourites, Harry knew, and he played it often to soothe his nerves or clear his mind when thoughts overwhelmed. 

And lately, that was not an uncommon occurrence. 

Excited as they were about the upcoming addition to their family, Harry knew they were both holding onto deeply-rooted insecurities and fears about the massive change their life was about to undertake just two short months from now. To say that neither of them had the most stellar of upbringings would be the understatement of the century.

But for Harry in particular, he was as burdened with how to become the father he'd always wanted to have as Draco was with how to _not_ become the father he _did_ have.

Harry watched Draco as he played the final notes, then leant back, arms stretching high as thin cotton stretched over pale skin that grew more swollen and rounded by the day. 

"Why don't you make yourself useful, Potter, and come relieve some of the tension caused by your son."

Harry grinned, walking over to place his hands against Draco's shoulders, rubbing gently as he bent down to kiss his cheek.

"I didn't think you heard me come in." Harry let his fingers knead the line of Draco's spine, the warmth of his skin bleeding through the cotton.

"Hmm, my ears are learning to detect even the slightest sounds that are out of place, so I'll be ready for when _this one_ starts trying to pilfer biscuits to sneak into bed late at night."

"That sounds like an accusation," Harry answered, fingers venturing further down to the tight muscles between his shoulder blades.

"Like father, like son," Draco scoffed, rolling his shoulders back and shifting so that Harry could get at a frequent sore spot.

"That was one time, and you ate half if you'll recall."

Draco threw his head back and looked up, mouth agape and indignant. 

"I ate _one!_ Maybe two."

"I know you're better at maths than that," Harry laughed.

Draco made a moue of disagreement, followed shortly by a moan of gratitude as Harry hit on a particularly tight knot of muscle.

"You keep doing that, and I'll let you get as many crumbs in the bed as you want."

Harry leant close to Draco's ear, "I'll remind you of that next time you yell at me for snacking in bed."

"But there's so many other things you could spend your time doing when you're there."

Harry could hear the smirk in his voice.

"And I've been known to eat more than just biscuits in bed as well."

Draco did laugh at that before scooting over on the bench, patting the empty space beside him. Harry sat, looking Draco in the eyes and noticing the slight greyish pallor beneath them. Some of the worry that had dissipated while Draco played was coming back.

"You're tired."

Another smirk.

"Captain Obvious." 

"You need your rest, Draco."

"I am resting, right here with you on this bench."

"You need sleep, and lots of it," Harry chastised. "How long have you been awake? It's barely seven o'clock."

"You sound like Mother," Draco answered, frowning.

"She's a smart woman."

"Some of the time, certainly. Points lost for marrying Father, however." Draco shifted again, turning slightly toward him. "How was work?"

"You're changing the subject."

"That bad?"

Harry looked down at his hands, remembering that hours earlier they'd held onto a little boy named Milo while his life had slipped away.

"It . . . wasn't great. Let's just leave it at that."

Warm hands enclosed his own, and he raised his head slightly as he felt Draco draw near, lips brushing softly against his cheek. Harry tilted his head, meeting Draco's lips with his own in a sweet kiss that he'd longed for all night, and hadn't known how much until that very moment. Lifting his hands to cradle the other man's face, he deepened their kiss, tongue tasting the overly-sugared tea that Draco favoured in the mornings.

They parted, and Harry stood, grasping Draco's hands and helping him to his feet.

"I can't wait until this thing is out of me."

"You'll miss it after the first day, and we both know it."

Harry hid his grin as Draco placed a possessive hand against his belly, averting Harry's pointed look.

As they reached the conservatory doors, Draco stopped without warning. Harry looked back at him, noticing the sudden look of poorly-disguised worry on his face.

"Harry?"

"What's wrong?"

"We'll be good parents, won't we?"

Harry placed his hand over the bump of Draco's belly, rubbing softly and hoping to feel movement beneath. He thought of little Milo and of his mother who had never left his side, who had begged Harry, body wracking with sobs, to save her only child. In that darkest moment of deepest grief, Harry was witness to the love of a parent for their child, something that Harry had never experienced – the purest, most primal sort of love that can't be learned or taught, and he knew he felt it already for his own child who he had yet to meet. A sort of peace washed over him, knowing that as long as he had that, he could not fail his own son. _Would_ not fail.

There was a slight ripple beneath his fingers, the baby inside awake and alert, and Harry felt the pull of something deep inside him that was overwhelming and foreign, yet not unwelcome. Something that tied him forever to the man standing before him and the baby he carried.

"We'll love him more than anything in this world, Draco. We'll muck things up at times, but I have you and you have me, and he'll have _us_. Everything is going to be all right. _Better than all right._ It's going to be brilliant."

"Ever the optimist," Draco answered with a small smile, but Harry could see the appreciative reassurance in his eyes.

"Come on," Harry said, tugging on Draco's hand and pulling him near, leading him into the hall toward the kitchen. "There's a few Ginger Nuts left from yesterday," he grinned with a kiss to Draco's forehead, "Let's go get crumbs in the bed."


End file.
